Opera Singer hit all the right notes when victorious in the ten-furlong Group 1 Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood on Thursday.
Fresh off the back of a masterful ride on Jan Brueghel in the Group 3 Gordon Stakes, Ryan Moore once again was at his brilliant best when guiding Opera Singer to an all-the-way victory in the Group 1 Nassau Stakes.
Although easy to back throughout the morning, Opera Singer was strong towards the off and sent off a 9/4 chance to claim her second career top-level success.
An impressive winner on quick ground over a mile in the Group 1 Prix Marcel-Boussac (8f) on Arc Day at Longchamp in October, the beautifully-bred daughter of Justify arrived having run well in defeat on both outings this campaign, finishing third in the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas (8f) on her reappearance in May, before filling the runner-up spot behind subsequent Group 1 Falmouth Stakes (8f) scorer Porta Fortuna in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes (8f) at Royal Ascot in June.
With connections confident in her ability to handle the step up to ten furlongs for the first time, Moore made his intentions clear from the outset, sending Opera Singer to the front.
Moore wound up the tempo with five furlongs to travel and Aidan O'Brien's charge quickened up nicely once given the office, taking a couple of lengths out of her rivals at the two pole. The challengers began to close deep inside the final furlong and although Andrew Balding's See The Fire eating into the ground, Opera Singer hung tough to score by a neck crossing the line.
The Patrice Cottier-trained Prix de Diane winner Sparkling Plenty kept on well to finish third, but the supplemented Emily Upjohn never looked like landing a blow having been caught wide without cover for much of the race.
Paddy Power left Opera Singer an unchanged 12/1 chance for the Group 1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (12f) at Longchamp in October, an objective both O'Brien and Moore see fit for their improving daughter of Justify.
"When Ryan got off her last year after she won the Marcel Boussac, he said this filly could come back and win the Arc. She's a very special filly. Ryan gave her an incredible ride, too, but he was so confident about her." said the maestro from Ballydoyle.
"We had an interrupted spring with her; she was barely ready for a racecourse gallop when she went to The Curragh for the Guineas and then we left her to go straight to Ascot, where she ran a great race.
"All we wanted to do was step her up to a mile and a quarter. Obviously, there's every chance she will get a mile and a half. She's very classy. Ryan just said she was waiting in front - to do that in front of a bunch of fillies like that, and she fought as well, so you'd have to be pleased."
Opera Singer looks set for a run in France as part of her Arc preparation, with the Group 1 Prix Vermeille a possible option.
O'Brien said: "She'll go to one of the fillies' races in France [before the Arc] and she can have a run around the track.
"I don't think she needs to be tested at 12 furlongs before the Arc, necessarily. She could do it, but we always thought she'd stay.
"Justify's - one thing about them, they don't stop. Every one of them, they keep going."
Moore, who was landing the prestigious Group 1 for the fourth time, all of which have been for Aidan O'Brien, said of the triumph: "I was very confident that Opera Singer would stay. She does everything beautifully. She is fine at ten furlongs, but I don't think twelve would be an issue. When she won the Boussac on her last year, I thought she was an Arc filly.
"She ran a super race at Ascot, where she was beaten by Donnacha's good filly [Porta Fortuna]. We always felt when she won the Boussac at a mile last year that, staying on very well, she would be a ten or twelve-furlong filly.
"I thought she would take a lot of beating today and hopefully she will improve again."
